


Chiaroscuro

by greeneyes_softsighs



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:36:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeneyes_softsighs/pseuds/greeneyes_softsighs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trowa decides to seduce his teacher.  3x5</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

> “Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right.”  
> ― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty
> 
> There are two kinds of people in this world, and luckily they both helped me with this fic.  
> Thank you to sans-voir and laurathia for editing & commentary.

“Anyone can learn chiaroscuro technique and make something look like a photograph,” Trowa’s teacher stated to the class while pointing at a homework assignment.  It was one of the better ones; a beautiful portrait of a woman sitting, her face shadowed, her body perfectly proportioned.  Everyone stared at it, envious of the skill, though Trowa knew it must have taken hours to complete.  Hours that, with two jobs and four classes, he could never put into the work.  He had tacked his drawing up near the end of the line hoping Mr. Chang would run out of steam by the time they got to it.

No such luck.  The teacher strode from his current position all the way down the line to Trowa’s drawing.  He looked at it carefully for a moment, letting the class linger in painful silence before he stabbed a finger at it and asked, “Whose drawing is this?”

The class parted like the Red Sea in front of Trowa, singling him out, and even one student in the back pointed and said, “That guy.” Mr. Chang nodded and tore his assignment off the wall to a chorus of gasps from the students.  The man strode back to the first drawing and tacked Trowa’s over the one next to it.  Someone made a little offended noise behind him.

“Anyone can render,” Mr. Chang continued to lecture.  “It’s pure masturbation.  You sit, and you spend hours with your pencil or charcoal or whatever and just masturbate all over the page.  But that isn’t fucking art.  Design is art.  Design, and taking what you see and turning it into something that communicates.  Something that talks.  Something like this,” he gestured to Trowa’s drawing.  Beside the realistically rendered image of a woman at a window, his picture looked like an exercise in broken anatomy and schizophrenic caricature.  

Trowa had only spent a couple hours on it.  Could only get his friend Duo to sit still for as long as it took him to watch Return of the Jedi.  The shading was horribly smudged and Duo’s body was elongated, his folded fingers angular and stark in contrast to the black t-shirt he wore.  His expression was petulant as he looked off the page, seemingly glaring at the woman seated at the window.

“This is a beautiful drawing.  Lovely design, lovely shapes.  It’s lyrical.  It tells us a story,” Mr. Chang said, looking at Trowa pointedly.  Trowa couldn’t help a blush from creeping up his neck when their eyes met, but he kept his face passive.  “But it isn’t the assignment.  You’ll get a C while this boring, run of the mill drawing gets an A.”

The class sniggered quietly but Mr. Chang did not seem amused.  In fact, he looked a little angry as he unpinned Trowa’s picture and returned it to the end of the line.  After that, the rest of the critique went by uneventfully.  The teacher was easy to throw off on tangents, and what he said seemingly made no sense in context to the questions asked.  Most of the students found him pedantic as well as grumpy and hard to work with, but Trowa felt like he understood.  He liked to think he caught a thread of desperation and disappointment strung through Mr. Chang’s lectures that no one else seemed to hear.

Maybe he was just burned out, though.  Maybe halfway into the semester, he was starting to see something where there was really nothing.  Starting to imagine when the teacher sent him looks across the room.  When he stood just too close to demo a certain drawing technique.  When he would stop to admire and make a flippant comment about Trowa’s work being beautiful.  His style intriguing.

Before the end of class, Mr. Chang announced a field trip to the Freer-Sackler gallery.  Everyone groaned.  It was early winter in D.C, freezing and windy.  Trowa didn’t mind the short walk from school to the mall, but the gallery itself was not one of his favorites.  It housed a lot of Asian and Middle Eastern artifacts that, while beautiful, did not hold his interest like the paintings at the National Gallery of Art.

Trowa approached the teacher while everyone was packing up and trickling out of the room.  He shouldered the strap of his portfolio case and stood a good distance away, waiting for the teacher to look up before speaking.  Mr. Chang was too busy collecting homework assignments in a pile to look up, so instead he asked confrontationally, “What is it, Barton?”

“I was wondering if we could talk, Mr. Chang,” Trowa said quietly.

That’s when the teacher looked up.  One of his angular, black brows arched upward as he regarded his student.  “Do you have a class after this one?”  Trowa shook his head and the teacher nodded.  “Give me a minute to clean up here and I’ll meet you outside.”

Trowa waited outside the classroom, and after Mr. Chang exited, they began walking down the hall together in silence.  Although the teacher was shorter, Trowa had to walk quickly to keep up with his brusque stride.  He had no idea where they were going and didn’t want to ask and sound stupid, so he simply followed the other man out onto E Street and crossed over to the American Red Cross’ Clara Barton cafe.  They stood in line for a couple of coffees -- which the teacher paid for -- and took a seat at one of the small tables.  When they were comfortable, Mr. Chang unwrapped his dark blue scarf from around his mouth and asked, “So, what do you want to talk about?”  Trowa kept his hands around his coffee, warming them against the styrofoam.

“My grade,” he said, noticing immediately the look of distaste that crossed the teacher’s face.

“You have a chance at a good conversation and you just want to talk about your grade, Barton?  In the scheme of things, your grade doesn’t matter.  As an artist, your grade will never matter--”

“Yeah, well, if I want to keep my scholarship it matters,” Trowa retorted with a little more heat in his voice than he intended.  The teacher’s face didn’t change much, but he nodded, accepting Trowa’s words.  The student continued, “I was wondering if I could re-submit some assignments for a higher grade.”

“No,” the teacher shook his head.  “I don’t allow anyone re-submissions.  I can’t make exceptions for you, Barton.”  Disappointed, feeling defeated before he could even put in a word, Trowa bit his lip and looked down at his coffee.  He would definitely lose his scholarship, then, because there was no way he could make up his grade by the end of the semester.  They lapsed into silence, neither saying more as Mr. Chang sipped his coffee and Trowa stared at his hands.  Finally, the teacher gave a suffering sigh.

“You do good work, Barton.  You could get A’s if you spent the time those other morons did,” Mr. Chang admitted.  “But then you would be trading off good grades for your integrity as an artist.  It’s up to you what you want out of this class.  You’ll pass through with a C at best, but you’ll have better pieces for a portfolio.”

“I need a B or higher,” Trowa explained dourly, looking back up at Mr. Chang.  The other man regarded him with a piercing, black gaze that sent a shiver down his spine.  After a moment, Mr. Chang pursed his lips and looked away.  He sighed again.

“Have you done lithography before?  Or intaglio?”  Mr. Chang asked, still not looking at Trowa.  He had crossed his legs earlier and now his foot was bouncing slightly.  Trowa once again found himself reading deeper into the body language than he necessarily should have.  Was his art teacher nervous?  Maybe just impatient.  But there was a certain tension in his mouth and the stiff way he held his shoulders that hinted otherwise.

“We had to take a printmaking survey course foundation year,” Trowa answered slowly, cutting into the styrofoam of his coffee cup with his thumbnail.  That had nothing to do with the class or grades.  Mr. Chang nodded and stood abruptly.  He wound his scarf around his face again, looking down at Trowa with a few fingers resting on the tabletop.

“Get an A on your next assignment, Barton, and I’ll see what I can do about your scholarship,” he said, then rapped the table one with a knuckle before turning and leaving the cafe in his usual gruff way.  Trowa stared after him in confusion.  What did that mean? 

* * *

 “So you were flirting with your teacher to get a good grade?”  Duo summarized Trowa’s experience, trying to hold still while Trowa worked at his desk on next week’s chiaroscuro assignment.  Raiders of the Lost Ark was almost halfway over and the braided man was getting antsy.  Trowa put down his charcoal pencil and glared at his friend.  He had told Duo about the odd exchange in confidence, unsure whether or not he’d read Mr. Chang correctly.  Of course Duo would tease him about it.

“I wasn’t flirting,” Trowa defended himself rather lamely.  His friend snorted and stretched his arms, cracking his knuckles and toes and every bone in between in an effort to show Trowa just how uncomfortable it was modeling for him.

“Yeah, and he’s totally going to up your grade without any compensation,” Duo shot back skeptically, adding a little bit of an eyebrow wiggle for added discomfort on Trowa’s part.

“You’re an asshole.  Mr. Chang is not like that.”

“Right.  Right.  He’s a very fair teacher,” Duo quipped, repeating Trowa’s previous assessment of how his teacher delegated grades in class.  Duo didn’t agree at all.  He thought that if the teacher liked the artwork, it should receive an automatic A.  Rubric be damned.  Of course, he was an experimental metal sculptor and not an illustration major.  Rubrics were hard to come by in the metal labs, unless they pertained to using arc and mig welders under proper safety guidelines.  

“Not that you would mind if he came onto you, right?  I totally know when you’ve got the hots for someone, Tro.  Remember that short blonde guy from Georgetown you met last year?”  Trowa sighed.  Yes, he did remember.  “Yeah, you wouldn’t shut up about him for like six months.  Same thing with Mr. Chang.  And there’s something to be said about you, Trowa Barton, constantly talking about a teacher.  Granted, he is a cute teacher.  Yeah, I’ve seen him around.  Chinese guy with a stick up his ass.”

“I don’t have the hots for him.  But… he is beautiful --” Saying it outloud was a little more thrilling than he anticipated.  “-- He’s talented.  His illustrations are amazing.  He says stuff in class that I really agree with.  He made this kid cry the other day after ripping into his piece and telling him he didn’t have the personality to make it in the field.  He --”  

He stopped talking when Duo fell off his chair laughing.  Shit.  He really was into his teacher.

“Duo, what do I do?”  Trowa asked with his head in his hands, forgetting they were covered in charcoal.

“Shit, Tro.  What do you want to do?” Duo asked from the floor, trying to calm himself.  They exchanged a very serious look.  “What’s his first name?”  
  
Trowa couldn’t help the little smile that crept onto his lips, and hid behind his hair when he replied, “Wufei...”

 

* * *

 

The next week, Trowa arrived half-frozen at the gallery.  A few of his classmates were milling around in the entranceway already, chatting with each other and complaining about having to come out in the cold.  Mr. Chang stood off to the side alone, looking through a pamphlet.  Actually, he was scowling at a pamphlet, and Trowa noticed that he had foregone the usual severe ponytail for a loose bun at the nape of his neck.  Trowa avoided his classmates and approached the teacher.  
  
“Hi, Mr. Chang,” Trowa greeted, becoming the focus of the teacher’s scowl as he looked up from the pamphlet.  The young man tried hard to meet his frown with a friendly, neutral expression.

“Barton, glad you could make it,” he replied, lowering the paper in his hand.  Trowa wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe he caught a hint of humor in the teacher’s normally abrasive tone.  He gave Trowa a once over and added, chastising him, “Don’t you students realize it’s cold outside?  Where are your gloves?  Don’t you have a hat?”

Trowa’s already wind-raw cheeks heated up a little under the gaze.  “Maybe I’m still young and stupid enough to try and look good,” he quipped back.  Mr. Chang gave him an arch look and seemed poised with a scathing retort to counter, but luckily the gaggle of students had migrated over to them and took his attention.  Trowa melted back into the crowd as the teacher started to give them a short lecture.  They were there to study the designs used in the Asian and Middle Eastern artwork.  Most of what they would see was highly stylized.  Someone grumbled.  It had nothing to do with chiaroscuro.  Their teacher was wasting the class’ time.

“I want to talk to each of you individually about your work,” Mr. Chang said as a paper was passed around.  Trowa took it and signed his name with a time later in the day.  “I’ll be waiting in the Peacock room, so meet me there at your allotted time.  Understood?”  Everyone nodded wearily and dispersed, off to waste six hours staring at the artifacts.

Trowa didn’t linger.  He walked off, cradling his sketchbook as he meandered through the permanent collections of the gallery.  The only other people he ran into were fellow students, and usually they avoided talking to him anyway.  He wasn’t particularly friendly to anyone, but he wasn’t rude either.  No one seemed to have a very good idea of his personality -- except Duo Maxwell.  They had met each other during orientation, remained close friends since then and finally became roommates the previous semester.  Duo was Trowa’s only confidant at the school.  He didn’t judge Trowa, and, after their discussion a few days ago, Trowa definitely didn’t want to be judged.  He had decided to try and seduce his teacher, and Duo gave him his blessing with a laugh.  

Mr. Chang was intriguing.  He was abrasive and combative, but it didn’t really seem like he meant to come across as mean or spiteful.  The teacher was frustrated with the way his students continued to shirk their work or ignore his lectures.  Trowa saw a beauty in him that ran deeper than his dark, elegant features.  He saw a passion that fed his angry tirades against lazy artists and stupid clients.  He was someone Trowa wanted to unravel and pick apart, to find the hidden facets that he was sure lurked underneath the prickly hide.  He mentally kicked himself when Duo’s voice drifted into his thoughts, ‘I bet there’s another hidden facet you’d like to explore.’

Trowa had convinced himself that it was more than lust.  More than simply being horny, because if he wanted, he could probably sleep with any of the eligible gay men in the school.  Hell, Duo would probably sleep with him if he really asked.  But this wasn’t about that.  This was about finding someone who finally understood how Trowa felt about his artwork.  Someone who could teach him more than simply drawing a pretty picture.  Trowa sat in front of a delicately painted folding partition and began to sketch from it.

He wiled away a few hours sketching from the Japanese screens, then moved around to inspect the Islamic art.  It was amazing how detailed the artifacts became.  Words and symbols -- they swirled together with dizzying intricacy.  They were layered and complicated.  Trowa thought it was complication that made these things beautiful.  The subtle blurring of the line between utilitarian artifact and something beautiful just for the sake of being beautiful.  It wasn’t the National Gallery of Art, but he found he could enjoy being in the space among these things.  He filled a few pages of his sketchbook over the next hour, then began to walk to the Peacock Room.

Mr. Chang was inside sitting on a bench at the center of the room.  The student meeting him was perched beside the teacher, hunched over while Wufei stabbed his finger angrily at the drawing homework.  The older man’s face was a little red; he must be really worked up over something.  Trowa waited just outside the entrance to the room and watched, studying his teacher closely in an effort to really pinpoint what attracted him.

Of course he was gorgeous.  The man looked no older than his mid-twenties.  His skin was perfect, smooth and taut, and his hair was a lustrous black.  When it caught the light, Trowa was sure he saw the brilliant colors of the Peacock Room reflected in the dark strands.  Dark, rich greens and deep blues oscillated like the rainbow across an oil slick.  Mr. Chang’s eyes were sharp and focused, drilling into the student beside him as the teacher waited for him to speak in retaliation to his scathing critique.  The washed out, watery-eyed student seemed to quiver under that unrelenting gaze.  Trowa chewed the inside of his lip, trying to imagine the intense scrutiny and powerful calculation of such a look being turned on him.

He didn’t have to imagine for very long, because as the young man in front of Mr. Chang waffled around for a sufficient answer, the teacher looked up and caught Trowa’s eye.  His breath was stolen from him momentarily, and then the teacher rolled his eyes and returned his scrutiny to the young man at his side.  Trowa smiled and turned away, remaining by the door until his classmate left the room.

“Homework, Barton?”  Mr. Chang asked when Trowa sat beside him on the bench.  The Peacock Room was empty of people -- no one but the staff and their class had shown up on such a cold day -- so they were alone.  Trowa pulled out his drawing and unrolled it for the teacher to look over.  Mr. Chang barely glanced at it.  

“You followed the directions well,” the teacher said, praising Trowa in a way that made it feel like it wasn’t actually praise.  “This is what you need to do to get a good grade.  How do you feel about it?”

Trowa shrugged in response.  He didn’t really feel anything about it.  It was just like Mr. Chang said: he had followed the directions.  

“You could have paid more attention to the core shadows,” the teacher continued after a beat, gliding one elegant finger over the top of Trowa’s paper.  He caressed the edge of Duo’s folded arms, indicating that reflected light, or at least a secondary light source, would have strengthened the idea of volume.  “It requires some tweaking, but in all you handle the medium very well.  This will receive an A.”

“Thanks,” Trowa muttered.  He didn’t know what he’d been expecting the teacher to say.  If he’d been expecting more than lukewarm praise and general commentary.  Mr. Chang rolled his paper back up and handed it to him.  Trowa slid it into his carrying case.  He was angry, for some reason, or disappointed.  He had done what Mr. Chang asked and gotten none of that fire or passion the other students received.  He had wanted more than a simple pat on the head and good job.  
  
“Wait a minute, Barton,” Mr. Chang said gruffly when Trowa moved to stand.  “I spoke with Professor Une about your scholarship, and she agreed to allow you some extra credit work.”

“Oh?”  Trowa was surprised.  Prof. Une was a hard woman to crack.  Not even Duo, who could charm the pants off a dancing bear, had been able to talk his way out of anythingwith Une.  Yet, the image of Mr. Chang arguing with her over her mahogany desk was not something he found surprising.  The teacher nodded.  His eyes seemed to be looking anywhere but at Trowa, inspecting the treasures that occupied the room with them.  The lattice-like gold shelves.  The delicate chinaware.  Whistler’s paintings.  Mr. Chang set his jaw and brought his gaze back to Trowa’s face.

“You’ll be starting an apprenticeship with me,” he said, brow furrowed intensely.  “I need an assistant in my studio.  You are interested, right?”

Trowa was shocked.  His disappointment from earlier dissipated into a strange elation, and in the silence that followed Mr. Chang’s question the heat between their bodies became more and more noticeable.  Trowa licked his bottom lip thoughtfully, earning another grave frown from his teacher.  

“Yeah,” Trowa replied.  “I would.  I mean, I have two jobs already though.”

“You’ll have to quit one of them,” Mr. Chang replied.  “Unless you aren’t serious about this, then you can continue working two meaningless jobs.  Probably for the rest of your life.  Art requires hunger, Barton.  You have to be hungry for success.”

The words rang harsh and cold in Trowa’s ears, but he knew the truth to them, and knew that Mr. Chang would never bullshit about it.  “Okay,” he said impulsively.  Mr. Chang didn’t seem convinced, so Trowa added,  “No.  I am hungry for this.  I want to work with you.”  Whether he had meant to say ‘with’ instead of ‘for,’ Trowa wasn’t sure.  He hungered for success.  He hungered to be equals with the man next to him.  The teacher inclined his head, satisfied with his answer.

“Here,” he gave him a business card.  Trowa took it and flipped it around in his hands.  “Email me your work and class schedules.  I will set up times around that.  You start Tuesday.”

Trowa nodded.  

“Good,” the teacher replied, signalling the end of their transaction.

Mr. Chang crossed his legs.  His foot bounced slightly when Trowa didn’t get up, and they remained sitting beside each other on the bench in silence, thighs nearly touching.  Trowa studied the paneled walls of the room.  They were gorgeously detailed with paintings of peacocks in gold on blues and greens.  The student and his teacher faced the largest of these panels on the wall opposite Whistler’s painting of The Princess from the Land of Porcelain.  A pair of peacocks, locked in fierce combat, tails fanned and wings spread.  It was passionate and violent, qualities magnified by the rest of the room’s calm, elegant beauty.

“Do you know the story of this room?”  Mr. Chang asked abruptly.  Trowa shook his head and his teacher sighed.  “Of course.  They teach you nothing at this horrible school.  Have you ever even been in this room before?”  Trowa shook his head again.  Mr. Chang took a centering breath.

“It was originally built as a showroom for a wealthy Englishman’s collection of Chinese porcelain,” Mr. Chang could barely restrain an eyeroll.  It was apparent in his tone how much he really cared for that part of the story.  Trowa offered a small smile as encouragement to continue.  “The architect consulted Whistler about what colors to paint the room, because Whistler’s own painting -- that one behind us -- was on display as well and he did not want the colors to clash with it.

“Whistler saw an opportunity and took it.  He told his benefactor he wanted to add yellow accents to the wall panels, and in the end he gilded half the room with metal and painted these beautiful peacocks on the blue and green walls.  When the bill came, the owner of the room refused to pay him in full.  Whistler painted this last panel in retaliation and he called it ‘Art and Money.’  The two fighting peacocks are supposedly representative of himself and his benefactor.”

Trowa stared at the panel.  Art and Money.  He tried to imagine himself, taken so vividly by his vision, completely disregarding the wishes of his client.  In the end, the patron received a thing of astounding beauty, and the artist’s vision was realized.  But at what cost?

“Mr. Chang, can we leave now?”  Someone asked from the doorway.  The teacher groaned quietly and turned, focusing an intense look of annoyance at the students gathered there with their coats and scarves, already bundled.

“You could have left hours ago and I wouldn’t have noticed,” he answered, abrasive as usual.  The students shifted uncomfortably, not sure whether that was to be taken as a yes or a no answer.  The teacher growled in frustration.  “Yes.  Go, I will see you all next week.”  Trowa gathered his things and stood while his classmates left them again, muttering amongst themselves.  He wound a thick green scarf around his neck slowly.

“I doubt it would have made any difference if I said ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” Mr. Chang confided to Trowa quietly, angrily, with his eyes on the fighting peacocks.  “People always end up doing just what they want, anyway.”  Trowa shouldered his portfolio.

“It’s not your fault,” the student replied.  “They’re not hungry enough.”  His teacher actually laughed, though the sound was bitter.  He glanced over at Trowa with a lighter expression, one the student had never seen before.

“Tuesday, Barton,” he reminded him.  

* * *

 

When Trowa arrived to his teacher’s studio address on Tuesday, it was snowing.  He had quit his second job at the shitty cafe off New York Ave. and moved around his schedule at the shitty Bistro on M Street to make it on time, but the hassle was worth it.  At least, he’d convinced himself it would be worth it.  As a peace gesture, Trowa carried two cups of steaming coffee with him.

The conversation with Mr. Chang in the Peacock room had continually played through his head since last class.  Every word.  Every gesture.  He picked them all apart, looking for the one tell that meant Mr. Chang accepted Trowa as more than a guileless art student.  He hoped the small present would cement the tenuous bond he imagined they’d forged in the gallery after the students left.  Those soft, angry words from Mr. Chang did not align with his usual personality.  Had he let Trowa to see a different side of his normally spiny exterior?

He approached the warehouse that sat on the C&O canal just off Wisconsin Ave.  The architecture was the usual DC fashion: cobbled stone that supported a red brick exterior.  Ivy climbed over the walls in places, framing the black-trimmed windows and the big entrance door and dusted with snow.  

Trowa shivered, though not from the cold.  His heart was beating hard in his chest, and he struggled to keep his hands from shaking as he rang the buzzer.  He waited.  The snow continued to fall.  It stuck to his shoulders and hair and eyelashes.  It melted under his feet, soaking into the worn soles of his boots.  After five minutes, he rang the buzzer again, keeping his finger on it for a good thirty seconds.

“What?”  The intercom crackled, and Mr. Chang’s voice cut over it with the usual undercurrent of annoyance.

“Uh… it’s Trowa Barton,” Trowa answered with some confusion.

“Shit,” Mr. Chang cursed, followed by a low, high-pitched buzz.  Trowa pushed through the front door and walked down the hallway lined with heavy-looking metal doors.  Inside the warehouse building was much nicer.  Warmer, at least.  Poured concrete floors and high ceilings with bare wooden beams gave it a modern feel.  A door at the end of the hallway opened up, revealing Mr. Chang in a grey work apron.  Beneath it he wore a wide-necked black sweater with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.  The teacher crossed his arms and gave Trowa a disapproving look as he approached.

“You’re late, Barton,” he complained.  Trowa glanced at his wristwatch.  Five minutes late because his teacher had let him freeze outside waiting at the door.  Instead of pointing that out, Trowa nodded.

“Sorry,” he said.  “I stopped to get something warm to drink.”  Mr. Chang raised a brow at the coffees in Trowa’s hand, then glanced up at his student.  He stepped back as Trowa entered the studio and followed him into the space.  It was much smaller than Trowa had imagined, and packed to the gills with two small intaglio printing presses, a large lithography press, a table for inking and another table for grinding litho stones.  Trowa walked over to the presses and noticed in the far corner, away from the floor to ceiling windows, there were two acid baths and a large laundry sink.  Bookcases took up almost all available wall space, displaying books in addition to housing the various inks and tools Mr. Chang used for engraving.

The rest of the space was covered in papers.  Drafts of print editions, sketches, and books covered the floor and a small couch.  It was a wonder that Trowa even noticed a bed shoved into one of the corners under a window, partially hidden by Mr. Chang’s large work desk.  Next to that was a small fridge and a hotplate on a little table.  A pile of clothing was heaped onto a tiny dresser in the corner as well.

“Do you live here?”  Trowa asked suddenly, incredulously, as he turned to look at his teacher.  The man gave a shrug.

“I had a place, but it was a waste of time to travel from here to there,” he answered.  “So now I live where I work.  You’re not going to drink both of those coffees, are you?”  Mr. Chang didn’t wait to pull one of the cups from holder.  He opened it and took a sip, then made a face.  The coffee was cold by now, but his teacher drank it anyway.  

He walked Trowa around the room, showed him all of the equipment, then outlined the general responsibilities he would have.  Essentially, it turned out that Trowa would be doing a lot of gofer work and clean up.  He would grind stones, wipe down the presses, and go on runs for more ink or paper or whatever.

“If it comes down to the wire, I might also need you to do extra edition prints,” Mr. Chang said, leaning on the large wheel of an intaglio press.  He had finished his cold coffee already.  Trowa could only nod in agreement.  He didn’t care, as long as he could bask in the sheer energy Mr. Chang exuded in his studio.  It had only been an hour or so, but he was already exhausted from the deluge of information while Mr. Chang seemed just as fresh as always.

“You’ll also have two assignments,” Mr. Chang added.  He strode over to the couch and picked up a small sheet of copper used for intaglio.  He handed it to Trowa, who took it and looked at it dumbly.  “Two prints by the end of the semester.  And this is in addition to your homework for my class, so don’t think you are getting out of that,” he said, smirking a little at the blank expression on his student’s face.

“Don’t think you can handle it?  I’d rather you back down now, Barton.  Don’t waste my time--”

“No,” Trowa returned the smirk with a look of quiet determination.  “I can handle it.”  He tucked the copper plate under his arm and Mr. Chang’s lips flattened.  He gave Trowa a serious once over, as if to say he’d underestimated the young man.  The student felt a thrill of excitement that did not seem to ease his trepidation.  Even if he couldn’t handle this, he would fake it until he made it.

Mr. Chang’s eyes remained on him for a second longer, then he turned away abruptly and began walking toward a pile of newly minted prints.  Trowa barely had enough time to remove his winter coat before he was put to work sorting and managing papers.  It turned out there was also a flat filing cabinet hidden in the mess of the studio.  He went to work organizing that as his first task.

A task that didn’t end for six hours.  And even after that time, Trowa had hardly made a dent in what seemed like the never ending piles of print proofs, off editions and sketches.  Mr. Chang kept everything he deemed remotely useful, and didn’t bother to organize until the need was dire.  And indeed it was dire now.

At 10 pm, Trowa looked up from an illustration of ducks on a pond to glance over at Mr. Chang.  They had hardly exchanged a word after Trowa went to work, and the man was still bent over his desk furiously sketching for his next print.  His lips were pinched in concentration, and a pair of small glasses had somehow appeared on the end of his nose.  He didn’t notice when Trowa stretched and laid back on the floor to gaze at the ceiling.  The poured concrete was cold on his shoulder blades, even through the thick weave of his grey sweater, but he didn’t care.  He was exhausted.  Trowa closed his eyes.

“Barton, wake up,” Trowa twitched awake when someone shook his shoulder.  He blinked and sat up, rubbing his eyes while Mr. Chang sat back on his heels crouched beside him.  The teacher gave him an amused smirk and Trowa offered a sheepish smile in response.  

“Sorry...”

“Go home, Barton,” Mr. Chang ordered gently, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder.  Fingertips lingered for a moment too long before the teacher pulled back.  He stood and walked over to one of his shelves.  Trowa’s cheeks heated up.  He couldn’t help the little smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.  The student stood and brushed himself off before bundling up for the bus ride home, trying to memorize the warmth and weight of that hand on his shoulder.  Mr. Chang returned from the bookshelf and held out a key.

“Next time I don’t want to be bothered when you arrive,” Mr. Chang said.  Trowa bit his cheek to keep his smile from turning into a grin.  He was getting a key.  He reached out to take it, but Mr. Chang pulled it away last second.  Their eyes met, and Trowa held his teacher’s intense gaze until Mr. Chang dropped the key into his hand.  “Do not.  Lose it.  I want you back here tomorrow after your last class to continue organizing the flat files.”

Trowa nodded and slipped the key onto his keychain as he walked out.  Mr. Chang returned to work at his desk, letting his student see himself out.

* * *

 Over the next couple of weeks, Trowa became somewhat of a constant at Mr. Chang’s studio.  He learned the man’s patterns, and began to anticipate when he was needed.  Usually it was later in the day or at night.  Mr. Chang was most active when it was dark outside.  Trowa had no idea how he could maintain so much energy after teaching a full day of classes, but it was not unusual for him to continue working even after Trowa left for the night.  The student had a hard time as it was dealing with four classes a week; having to come work at the studio, while also juggling his job at the bistro, kept him in a constant state of exhaustion.

He dragged himself down to the studio on a Wednesday after an early class and a short shift at the bistro.  In early afternoon, the light was already starting to fail and the Golden Hour lit the sides of the warehouse building golden-red as the sun sank.  Trowa buzzed himself inside, blind to the beauty of sunset, and unlocked the door with his key.  He expected Mr. Chang to be working at his desk.  Instead, the studio was empty.  The tell-tale scratch of a pencil or the gentle squeak of the intaglio press wheel as it turned was absent.  Trowa let out a sigh of relief and dropped his backpack onto the floor by the door.  His teacher had run him ragged.  

Trowa made it to the small couch and was able to push away proofs and student homework before collapsing on it.  He was much too tall for it, and it was a little lumpy and smelled like the oily ink they used for intaglio, but none of that mattered.  Trowa pulled his sweatshirt hood over his head, blocking out the golden rays of dying sunlight pooling through the tall windows, and slept.

“There’s a young man asleep on your couch, Wufei,” a deep voice penetrated Trowa’s dreams.  He woke slowly, kept his eyes shut, listened to the sound of hushed speaking and the swish of Mr. Chang’s dress shoes across the concrete floor.

“I’m aware,” came his teacher’s sour response.  A heavy knit blanket was gently draped over Trowa’s body when Mr. Chang spoke again, his tone gentler, closer, “This is the assistant I was telling you about.  Trowa Barton.”  Trowa recognized the blanket from the smell -- the warm spice of juniper berry and pine that Mr. Chang wore as a cologne.  It must have been one from his bed.

“Ah, so this is Trowa Barton, your new protegé.  He looks so angelic drooling on your couch, Wufei,” the guest purred.  It took every ounce of Trowa’s willpower to remain still, to keep his breathing even.  His blood sang in his ears.

“Mr. Barton is highly motivated, Zechs.  And talented,” Mr. Chang replied.  “Don’t underestimate him because of his youth.”

“Did I just hear you correctly?”  Zechs replied, incredulous.  “Did the great illustrator Wufei Chang, lone wolf and hermit, just tell me not to underestimate a young, inexperienced boy?  Because he is just a boy, Wufei.  I hope you don’t plan to fuck this one.”

“Shut up,” Mr. Chang hissed his response.  His tone was exasperated.  Trowa swallowed slowly.  Breathed slowly.  All in opposition to the wild beating of his heart against his ribs.

“Is that a yes or a no?”  Zechs pressed, sounding tickled.  A loud, sharp slap echoed off the walls of the studio, followed by deep, rich laughter.  “So it’s a yes.”

  
“Out, now,” Mr. Chang growled.

“I only just got here,” Zechs replied, cold and mirthless despite the sharp curve of a dangerous smile in his voice.  “Can’t I meet your concubine?  If he’s so talented, maybe I’m interested in having his work in my gallery.  My most popular artist is recently becoming too much of a hassle to wrangle.”

“Get the fuck out, Zechs!”  Mr. Chang shouted suddenly.  Trowa twitched and curled in on himself.  His hoodie hid his face from view, but he kept his eyes closed anyway, praying Mr. Chang had not seen him move.  Not that he could pretend to be asleep after that outburst.  Zech’s molten laughter answered his teacher’s shout.  Feet scuffled across the floor.  The door opened.  It closed again, cutting off Zech’s chuckles.

“God help me,” Mr. Chang muttered to himself once the other man was gone.  Trowa uncurled his body and slowly sat up, rubbing a small amount of saliva from his chin.  He had drooled a little bit.  The weight of his backpack hit him suddenly in the chest, jarring him as Mr. Chang approached after tossing it.  

“Barton, it’s nearly midnight,” the teacher informed him, expression hardened into a deep frown.  Trowa looked up, waiting for his teacher to ask the question.  He knew they both wanted an answer.  Mr. Chang held his expectant gaze for an instant, then looked down at the blanket that had fallen from Trowa’s shoulders.  He grabbed it quickly and said, “You’ll miss the last bus out if you don’t leave now.”

Trowa stood and shouldered his backpack.  He watched Mr. Chang tidy papers and check ink supplies.  Anything except look at Trowa.  The student gave up waiting and began to walk out.  Just as he was closing the door, Mr. Chang called over his shoulder flippantly.

  
“Take the rest of the week off, Trowa.  Happy Thanksgiving.”

He practically ran down Wisconsin Ave. to the bus stop.  Made it with ten minutes to spare and sat on the metal bench by the dim, cold streetlamp under the freeway overpass.  The street was empty.  Dark.  Frigid.  He wished that he’d stayed in Mr. Chang’s studio.  Wished he’d said something.  Wished that the smell of juniper and pine had lingered on his sweatshirt, because he felt like something had broken in the room back there.

He didn’t know what.  Didn’t know how to fix it.  Hoped desperately that Mr. Chang really just meant the rest of the week -- which was Thanksgiving break -- and not forever.  The bus came, he got on and rode it home, followed by a sense of dread. 

* * *

 Duo smiled a lot.  He grinned whether he was happy, angry or nervous.  It was a default expression, and Trowa had become accustomed to all its variations in the time he knew the sculptor.  Tonight, though, when he pushed into their cramped apartment after leaving Mr. Chang’s studio, Duo turned away from his video game and his smile vanished.  It dried up in an instant.  He pulled the headset off his head to regard Trowa seriously.

“What the hell happened?”

“Nothing,” Trowa replied, leaning against the door.  His tone revealed more than he wanted it to, and Duo got up and walked around the couch into their kitchen.  He put their beat up kettle on the stove and pointed at the stool shoved under the breakfast bar that was Trowa’s.

“Sit.  What the hell happened?”

“Nothing...” Trowa insisted, though he let his backpack fall onto the floor and took the seat.  Duo pulled out a small tin of tea bags and lowered one into Trowa’s favorite mug.  The music of the video game pause screen, and the squeaks of the old linoleum under Duo’s feet, filled their silence.  Once the kettle had boiled, Duo poured the water over the tea bag.  He steeped it for two minutes, then removed the bag and placed the mug in front of Trowa’s hands.

“Drink.  What the hell happened?”

“Nothing.  I mean,” Trowa blew on the tea.  The scent of jasmine, floral and familiar, grounded his mind.  He tried to sort through his feelings.  Tried to understand why he felt the way he did.  How he could feel this way in the first place.  “I fell asleep on his couch.  He wasn’t there when I got to the studio, so I took a nap.”

“That bastard try an’ do something?”  Duo asked.  The anger in his voice was jarring, and he looked like he was about to vault the counter and run all the way to Wisconsin Ave to exchange words with the teacher.  Trowa rubbed his cold cheek tiredly.  The tea was still too hot and burned his lips and tongue.

“No,” he remembered the smell of pine and juniper.  “I woke up.  He was there with someone else.”

“Oh.”

“A gallery owner named Zechs,” Trowa continued.  “I don’t know.  He said something.  Joked about how Mr. Chang wanted to fuck me.”

“Whoa,” Duo stared at Trowa, but the green-eyed man couldn’t meet his gaze.  Saying it out loud, seeing Duo’s stunned face, brought the realization of Trowa’s goal into sharp focus.  It felt wrong to say it, but at the same time, he so fiercely wanted it.  He wanted Mr. Chang to fuck him.  Trowa wet his lips and swallowed.  He knew that, despite all their bravado during the discussion weeks ago, the other student had never really taken his plan to seduce Mr. Chang very seriously.  The gaze on him was heavy.

“I’m still going to do it,” Trowa spoke into his mug, answered the unasked question.

“Dude, you know, I thought we were just throwing the idea around for shits and giggles,” Duo said.  “You can really get in trouble.  He can get in trouble.  Big trouble.  Jesus, why do I have to tell you this?  Come on, man.  We’ll just go out and pick up a quick lay, if you’re really that horny.”

“No, Duo.  You know I don’t like doing that.  Plus,” Trowa shook his head.  “I want him.  I only want him.”

“You hardly know this guy, Tro.  He could be fucking every student who walks into his studio.  Come on, last chance,” Duo offered again, getting a little desperate.  He knew how stubborn Trowa was, and in situations where the artist had made up his mind, Duo became too frustrated to push him more than once or twice.  He didn’t like to fight losing battles.

“He’s not,” Trowa answered him, but he wasn’t sure if what Zechs had inferred meant that Mr. Chang actually had slept with a student before.  “And I’m not going back until after Thanksgiving break, anyway.”  Duo seemed to relax a little, but an undercurrent of disappointment was palpable.  

“This is fucked,” his roommate muttered darkly, leaning against the counter before pushing away.  He slid his fingers through his bangs, pushing them back from his forehead with a rough tug.  “For the record, Trowa Barton, I’m fucking mad at you.  If this goes wrong, I’ll be the one to pick up the pieces.  I don’t like being that person.”  

Trowa looked up from his tea and caught Duo’s eye.  Duo scowled, and for the first time ever Trowa felt the judgement in his gaze. 

* * *

 Trowa spent the holiday out of the city with his sister’s family.  He didn’t talk about Mr. Chang, didn’t mention his apprenticeship, and sailed through Thanksgiving dinner silently while Cathy and her husband had their hands full with the twins.  When he returned home, Duo avoided him.  He gave Trowa silent looks of disapproval and spoke to him only when necessary.

On Friday, after a long shift at the bistro, Trowa took a hot shower and masturbated while thinking about Mr. Chang for the first time.  He knelt awkwardly in the small tub and fingered himself, neck angled painfully and cheek pressed against the cold tile.  He moaned and thrust into his other hand, tugging at his cock.  Bit his lip.  He came, then watched as it washed down the drain between his legs.  He’d imagined holding his teacher.  Imagined them pressed together against that giant flat filing cabinet with papers scattered at their feet.

The week ended and classes began again.  Trowa skipped his chiaroscuro class.  He remained home, bundled in his bed, until 5pm.  It was snowing when he finally left the apartment and hopped on the Circulator that took him to Wisconsin Ave. and Mr. Chang’s studio.  Dark had already fallen when he arrived and buzzed himself inside.  He slid the key into the lock on the door and paused, could hear cursing from the other side.  Trowa opened the door warily and stood at the threshold as it swung open.

The studio was chaos.  All of his work organizing, cleaning, tidying -- it was undone.  Papers were scattered everywhere.  Ink bottles littered the floor by the litho press’ glass-topped counter.  Mr. Chang was in the middle of it, furiously rolling ink and proofing and trying to crank out an edition, though it looked like he was fighting every step of the way.  It took the teacher a couple minutes to realize someone was standing at his door.

“Don’t just stand there!  Get an apron,” Mr. Chang gesticulated furiously for Trowa to enter.  The student shut the door, shed his coat, and grabbed the apron hanging off the nearest bookcase.  In minutes, he was pulled into the chaos that was Mr. Chang’s work process.  At first they clashed, and the teacher would go off and yell at him, red-faced.  Then Trowa learned the rhythm.  Learned when to have the ink prepped.  When to have the paper ready, the heavy stone loaded.  It turned into a dance.  They grew silent, and when Trowa finally looked up to the clock it was almost 1 a.m.

“Mr. Chang?”  He asked.  The teacher was scraping ink off the glass-topped counter, brows pinched, concentrated.  Trowa had to try again.  He swallowed, then asked, “Mr. Chang?  It’s one a.m.”

“And?”  Mr. Chang answered without looking up.

“It’s one a.m.  I missed the last bus out,” Trowa replied.

“Shit.  Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”  Mr. Chang cursed.  He glanced over at Trowa, the first time he had really acknowledged him outside of their printing frenzy, and his expression softened minutely.  Trowa could have imagined the relaxed curve in his teacher’s normally rigid posture.  “You weren’t in class today.”

“I wasn’t hungry enough to brave 30 degree weather this morning,” Trowa answered, offering a sheepish smile partially hidden by his bangs.

“I would say you missed something important, but you didn’t,” Mr. Chang replied to his joke honestly, tone hinted with the same discrete humor he showed at the gallery.  He pushed off from the counter he was leaning against and strode over to his desk past Trowa.  He picked up his cellphone and said, “I’ll call you a cab.”

Trowa wasn’t sure what made him do it.  Duo’s warning rang in his ears.  The conversation between Mr. Chang and Zechs was still fresh in his mind.  That feeling of dread curled in his belly again, as the teacher began to punch in the number for a cab, and maybe that was why he finally spoke up.

“Can I stay here tonight?”  He said it so softly he wondered if Mr. Chang even heard him, because the teacher just kept typing the numbers.  He didn’t even look up.  So, Trowa spoke up again:  “Can I stay here tonight, please?”

“I heard you the first time,” Mr. Chang interrupted him fiercely.  He finished dialing.  Trowa took that as his answer and felt his stomach bottom out.  Felt the crush of disappointment and loss that he was not expecting.  He couldn’t lose something he’d never had in the first place.  But Mr. Chang never put the phone to his ear.  He watched Trowa.  Studied him, and for what seemed like the first time, he allowed his eyes to take in the entirety of the student before him without darting away.  The teacher’s mouth was set into a hard line.

“Hello, Yellow Cab Service.”

“You’ll sleep on the couch,” Mr. Chang stated; he seemed hesitant to make it into a question.

“Hello?  Hello?”

“That’s fine,” Trowa shrugged.  His heart was pounding again.

“Hello?  Jesus.  Fuckin’ drunks.”  A click, two beeps, and the phone disconnected.  Mr. Chang put it back onto the desk and walked over to the large drying rack covered with prints.  He counted them, then walked over to Trowa and pulled his wallet out.  He took a couple 20s from the bill fold and held them out to the student.

“There’s a pub down the street,” he said.  “Get us some food while I clean up.”

“What do you want?”  Trowa asked, hoping his teacher didn’t notice the way his hands shook when he took the money.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Chang replied.  Trowa left.  When he returned, they ate quietly at the small table by the bed and mini fridge.  Mr. Chang ate methodically.  He wasn’t picky.  When they finished, he gathered the same knit blanket he’d laid over Trowa last week and folded it over the couch.

“Good night,” Mr. Chang said, waiting a beat too long before switching off the lights.  Trowa laid on the couch with the blanket pulled up to his chin.  It was still snowing outside, had been when he went to get the food, so very little moonlight filtered through the tall windows.  Trowa focused on his shallow breathing in the darkness.  Focused on the frantic rhythm drummed out by his heart.  Focused on the scent of juniper and pine and oily paint.  He drifted in and out of a fitful sleep for a couple hours, never dozing for longer than thirty minutes at a time, until finally his body jerked him fully awake in the midst of his half-sleep state.

He sat up and looked over to the futon.  Mr. Chang’s head was visible from behind.  His dark hair in stark contrast to the white sheets, fanned out against the pillow.  Trowa slid off the couch, wrapped in Mr. Chang’s blanket, and approached the bed.  Mr. Chang shifted as Trowa’s pale shadow crossed over him.  He didn’t look up, or turn over, but Trowa could tell he wasn’t asleep.  The student slipped between the covers and spooned against his teacher.

Mr. Chang’s body was rigid, but warm.  He wore a simple pair of linen pants and a scoop-necked shirt with long sleeves.  Trowa had removed his own pants after lights out.  The hems had been wet from his walk in the snow, and they were draped over a printing press to dry.  His long, naked thighs pressed against the warmth of Mr. Chang’s legs and ass.  Fingers tentatively stroked between his scapula.

They lay like that for a little while.  Trowa was tired, but his heart was thundering, his body too full of adrenaline to fall asleep.  He was so close to getting what he wanted.  He inhaled slowly and let out a soft, shaking sigh against the back of Mr. Chang’s neck.  That was when the man turned.  He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling, brow furrowed, black eyes focused ahead.  His hands rested against his stomach, folded serenely.  

Trowa’s hand -- the one that had been caressing Mr. Chang’s back -- hovered for a moment, then he reached up and gently touched his cheek.  He traced the smooth skin over his jaw and chin, then up over his nose and brows.  Mr. Chang closed his eyes and let out a sigh, parting his lips minutely.  Trowa traced them, too, bolder in his touch as his index finger memorized the curve of his cupid’s bow.  He wondered how he could keep his hand so still when his entire body felt like it was trembling, shivering, electrified.

Trowa pushed himself up on his elbows and leaned over his teacher.  He pressed their lips together, closed his eyes, and Mr. Chang responded by opening his mouth and tasting the younger man’s bottom lip with his tongue.  The student heard himself moan, distantly, over the thudding of his blood in his ears.  He kept his eyes closed as he kissed a trail down Mr. Chang’s chin, throat, chest, and torso.  He disappeared under the covers, becoming a little lump as he straddled one of Mr. Chang’s knees and hunched over, face against his stomach.  His lips touched fabric, warmed by the flesh underneath, and nuzzled against the mound of Mr. Chang’s flaccid cock through his pants.

One harsh, sudden inhalation from above him accompanied the twitch Trowa felt under his mouth.  The student carefully pulled Mr. Chang’s pants down far enough to expose his genitals.  Under the blanket, the warmth of their bodies and the smell of Mr. Chang -- the husky scent of a body and the ever present spice of juniper and pine -- was overwhelming.  Trowa inhaled.  He felt intoxicated.  His brain was not working normally, but it felt good.

He sucked his teacher’s flaccid penis into his mouth, careful with his teeth.  Felt it grow slowly against his tongue, engorged and hot.  Heard the barely restrained moans and harsh breaths.  When it was fully hard, he wrapped his hand around the base and took the entire length, gagging a little in his effort.  Mr. Chang’s hips twitched.  His breaths were pants, his moans half-formed and desperate.  He came, pulsing slick, hot cum down the back of Trowa’s throat.  The student swallowed.  He milked the tip of his teacher’s cock with his lips, drawing out the last of his semen, then sucked and licked along the shaft to clean it.

Trowa pulled Mr. Chang’s pants back up over his hips again.  He came out from under the covers and inhaled in the cooler fresh air, his shoulders, arms and chest prickled with goosebumps in the cold of the apartment.  His lips and chin and cheeks were slick in spunk and saliva, so he swiped his arm across his mouth in a gesture that made Mr. Chang’s eyes widen.  They kissed again, quickly, and Mr. Chang turned to face Trowa, bunched his shirt up under his armpits to reveal his chest.  His hand slipped down the front of the student’s briefs, circling his cock, and he brought Trowa off with a few quick tugs while nuzzling his throat and licking and biting his nipples.

When Trowa’s body relaxed after the harsh spasms of his orgasm, and his mind unfogged, he noticed the pair of dark eyes watching him.  Mr. Chang’s expression held him captive until the teacher got up and grabbed a nearby t-shirt.  Used it to clean his hand, and Trowa, then tossed it somewhere on the floor.  Trowa pulled his shirt back down to cover his chest and stomach.  Mr. Chang settled back onto the mattress facing Trowa.

“You’re beautiful,” Trowa admitted softly.

“You’re young and stupid,” Mr. Chang chastised.  He smoothed Trowa’s bangs away from his face delicately.

“I love you,” Trowa breathed, caught up in the moment.

“Don’t,” Mr. Chang replied harshly.

“Don’t what?  Fall in love?  Too late,” the student whispered, smirking at his teacher.  Mr. Chang frowned.  He tugged Trowa close to his chest, brushed his lips against the younger man’s forehead.

“Don’t be an idiot.  Go to sleep, Trowa” he murmured.

Trowa woke the next morning when Mr. Chang got up to answer the person pounding on the studio door.  Last night felt like a dream.  The student curled into the space Mr. Chang had left empty and warm.  He listened as the door was opened, and a familiar voice answered his teacher’s harsh salutation.

“What the hell do you want?”

“I suppose you forgot about those editions,” Zechs purred in response.  He sniffed the air.

“I told you I’d have them delivered this afternoon.  What about that did you not understand?”

“I need them now.  They’ll be sent as presents to clients of the gallery,” Zechs said, sounding bored.  He sniffed the air again.  “Hm… you smell like sex, Wufei.  Were you able to catch that saucy little assistant of yours between the sheets?”  Mr. Chang’s silence was deafening.  Trowa shifted under the covers.  Felt his face and neck heat up at the accusation.  Zechs’ knowing laughter mocked them.

“And this can’t wait until I’ve finished them all?  Don’t come in here.”

“I’ve already paid for them,” Zechs said, an edge to his voice.  “I can take what you have now.  Let me in.  What the hell is the matter with you?”  Trowa sat up when he heard a short scuffle of feet.  Wufei was blocking the door to the studio with his body, seemingly infuriating the tall, elegant blond man, at the threshold.  Both of them turned to look at Trowa when his movement caught their eyes.

“We’ll finish the prints by noon,” Trowa said, reading the tension in Mr. Chang’s shoulders.  “I can deliver them.”  Zechs lit up with a frightening smile, one that made Trowa rethink his offer, and the scowl on Mr. Chang’s face was no less intimidating.  The student could feel the disapproval rolling off his teacher’s rigid shoulders.

“Fine,” the gallery owner replied, smirking at the student.  “I will make sure to be there to personally accept them from you.  Wufei, you have a very accommodating assistant.  I like him.”

Mr. Chang slammed the door once Zechs had left.  Trowa was getting out of bed when his teacher stalked over angrily, backing him up against the window.  Trowa’s shoulders pressed against the cold glass and he looked down at the older man.

“What gives you the right to say something like that, Barton?  To talk to my gallery director as if you had any say in my deadline,”  He seethed.  Trowa felt a thrill run up his spine while anxiety settled in his belly at the same time.  He realized that what he said probably crossed a line with Mr. Chang.  Stepped into his territory.

“I...”

“Zechs and I have a contract -- something he constantly ignores.  My deadline is expressly written there.  Don’t you dare ever give him the satisfaction of power over you -- over me -- by allowing him to break that contract.”  Trowa nodded once as an answer.  

Mr. Chang kept him cornered for another beat, searching Trowa’s face, then said, “You’re just my assistant.  You have no power in this situation.  Understood?  Do not do that again.  Now, get the press ready while I shower.”  He turned and headed into the small bathroom.  Trowa remained by the window for a minute.  He breathed, pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes and sucked in shuddering breaths.  When he was composed, Trowa grabbed his jeans and pulled them on.  He went to work setting up the presses and rolling ink.

* * *

 “Can I come back tonight?”  Trowa asked Mr. Chang just before leaving the studio a little after noon.  He had the hard portfolio case of prints slung over his shoulder.  Mr. Chang had insisted that they keep a few of the prints at the studio to continue drying, and after the exchange earlier, Trowa was convinced it was a power play.  He felt stupid for what he said to Zechs, now.  Understood why Mr. Chang was annoyed with him, maybe even angry, and felt that somehow he needed to make it up to his teacher.

“There’s no work that needs to be done,” Mr. Chang replied, holding the door open for Trowa.  The student remained just outside.  He wondered if the teacher made it a point never to answer questions with a yes or a no.

“I want to come back tonight.  Can I?”

“Why?”  Mr. Chang ground out between his teeth.  He was refusing to answer, and twisted the question back around at Trowa.  “Why did you start coming here at all?  Because you might lose your scholarship, or because of something else?”

“I told you last night why,” Trowa said, anger flaring.  “Is that not a good enough reason?”

“When is that ever a good enough reason, Trowa?”  Mr. Chang raised his voice, and it echoed down the hallway, reverberating and returning to them.  Trowa chewed the inside of his lip to keep his mouth from betraying how he felt about that question.  Mr. Chang sighed.  “You have a key, don’t you?”

Trowa finally turned away when Mr. Chang closed the door.  He walked to the bus in a couple inches of snow, and took it to Zech’s gallery near Chinatown.  As promised, the blond man was waiting.  Trowa had to suffer the judgemental glare of the woman working the desk for a few moments, though, before she would go and get him.

“I haven’t been able to introduce myself to you, yet,” Zechs greeted Trowa toward the back of the gallery.  The walls around them were painted deep burgundy red, with a few different illustrators’ and printmakers’ works hanging in frames.  Trowa looked at the artwork and barely leveled a glance at Zechs.  The man’s smile was infuriating.

“Zechs.  I know,” Trowa said, unable to keep the petulant tone from his voice.  The blond looked amused.

“Zechs Merquise,” he corrected.  Trowa didn’t reply with his own name.  “Wufei has told me a lot about you.  He thinks you’re quite talented for your age.”  Trowa stiffened when Zechs’ hand gently pressed against the back of his neck.  He was led through the gallery to a series of prints Trowa didn’t recognize.  The signature at the bottom next to the titles and edition numbers said Heero Yuy.  

“Have you heard of him?  Yuy is another up-and-comer Wufei mentored,” Zechs said, keeping his tone conversational.  His hand remained on the back of Trowa’s neck.  The weight was oppressive.  It forced Trowa to stare at the artwork, to take in the beauty of the intricate line and rich colors.  “Luckily, Heero didn’t stay under him for too long.  He earned a grant from our sister gallery in New York and works at his own studio, now.  He’s flourishing.  Really upping in value.”

“It’s not really my taste,” Trowa said, skin crawling from the extended touch.  He breathed a soft sigh when Zechs removed his hand and pressed them into the pockets of his high-end jeans.  The blond regarded Trowa thoughtfully.

“Really?  I would think you and Heero had similar tastes...” he said.  Trowa met his crystal blue eyes with a combative glare and silence.  Zechs replied by offering a business card.  It was heavy, and shiny, with the title of the gallery emblazoned across the bottom under Zechs’ name.  “Send me some of your work sometime, Trowa.  You and I can look at your portfolio over coffee.”

Trowa shoved the business card into his pocket and fled the gallery after dropping the prints with Zechs.  He was confused as to why it made him angry to think about Mr. Chang with another student.  With this guy, Heero Yuy.  His anger surged after realizing Yuy may have even used Mr. Chang just to get his contacts at the gallery.  Trowa was disgusted that he had taken the card.  Disgusted that he didn’t intend to throw it away.  Disgusted with the ghostly feeling of that hand on the back of his neck.

He walked down F Street toward the National Portrait Gallery.  Walked up the stairs leading to the entrance and steered himself toward the inner courtyard.  The Kogod courtyard had the open space Trowa craved while remaining enclosed.  It was serene, safe.  No one bothered him there, and the noise was minimal on cold days like this when no tourists wanted to visit the dreary city.  He pulled his sketchbook out of his bag and began to draw.  He drew what he felt, tried to turn his jumble of emotions and thoughts into images.  Tried to understand.

At seven, he left the building as they were closing and rode the metro home.  When he arrived, Duo was there playing his video game.  He ignored Trowa, offering no more than a glance as the taller student piled his things by the door and went to shower.  When Trowa had finished cleaning up and dressing, he walked into the kitchen.  Duo was already leaning against the counter waiting for the kettle as it boiled.  Trowa avoided looking at him.  He pulled a mug out of the cabinet for himself and placed it next to Duo’s.  The braided student had already dumped a packet of instant coffee into his.  Trowa pulled out a tea bag.

“So,” Duo said.  The word dripped with meaning.  Trowa didn’t want to hear it.

“So?”  He shrugged off Duo’s tone with his reply.  Implied he didn’t know what the other expected.  Didn’t know why Duo was talking to him now, the day after he’d spent the night in his teacher’s studio, after complete silence from his best friend for a week.  Duo’s jaw clenched, but he just gave a bark of laughter.

“Well, you didn’t fucking come home last night, Tro,” Duo pushed him to elaborate.  “Got anything to tell me?”

“I’m going out later,” Trowa replied.  “I won’t be back until after class tomorrow.”

“Right.  Got it,” Duo said.  “This is a terrible idea.  But you’re just gonna keep doing it, aren’t you?”

“I love him,” Trowa said.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”  Duo held up a hand to stop Trowa from answering that question.  The look on his face was earnest, worried.  “Just be careful.  Please?  At least be careful.  Be safe.”

“I will.”

* * *

 The bus ride over to Mr. Chang’s studio was cold.  It wasn’t snowing, but thick storm clouds hung low in the dark grey-blue sky.  Trowa’s world felt small under that low ceiling of clouds.  He felt like he walked through the set of a play, acting as himself, in a story about himself, making the biggest mistake of his life.  Everything told him this wouldn’t end well.  All the foreshadowing pointed to the tragic demise of his and Mr. Chang’s fragile agreement.  But he couldn’t stop.  Just like a play, he had to continue acting until the very last scene.  There was no stopping in the middle.  The end was inevitable and approaching fast.  

Trowa buzzed himself into the warehouse.  He walked down the hallway.  Turned the key.  Opened the door.  The studio was dark with the only light coming from the lamp on Mr. Chang’s desk.  His teacher was sketching, though not at his usual frantic pace.  Trowa let his backpack fall to the ground with a soft thud, drawing Mr. Chang’s attention.  Half of his face was lit brightly, the other half obscured in dark shadow.  He didn’t look surprised.  Trowa swallowed and unzipped his jacket.  Mr. Chang’s eyes followed his hand downward, then snapped back up to his face.

“Don’t you have class tomorrow?”  He asked.

“You live closer to the building,” Trowa said.  His jacket slumped over his bag on the ground, left behind as he walked over to Mr. Chang’s work desk.  He wasn’t expecting Mr. Chang to push his drawings aside, covering them from view when Trowa approached.  “What are you drawing?”

“Stop,” Mr. Chang ordered when Trowa leaned over, taking advantage of his long torso to twist and catch a better glimpse of the paper Mr. Chang had hidden.  He could see a leg.  A slender arm, and a shoulder.  But the rest was obscured.  Mr. Chang’s hand on his chest kept him from moving any further.  “Barton, what do you want?”

Silence fell, stifling them as Trowa searched for the correct answer.  Either way he was fucked and the end was already here.

“You called me Trowa this morning,” he said softly.  He used Mr. Chang’s tactic of ignoring the question.

“What do you want?”  Frustration.

“You,” he replied, harsher.

“Is that all you want?”  Annoyance.

“No, but...” the hand on his chest fell back into Mr. Chang’s lap.  His face was a mask of anger and conflict.  “I told you I’m hungry.  I do what I have to to get what I want.”

“You don’t know what you want,” Mr. Chang argued.  “You’re young and stupid--”

“I know.  You’ve already told me.”

“-- Goddammit, Trowa!  You think you know...  But, you can’t have what you want.  And neither can I,” the last words spoken softly after the outburst.  A whisper to echo the soft touch of his teacher’s palm against his cheek.  Trowa leaned down.  Chins bumped, lips aligned, and for a moment he got what he wanted.  What he thought he wanted, according to his teacher.  

Mr. Chang’s hand slid to the back of his neck.  Trowa was reminded of that afternoon, but then the weight was gone.  He leaned back as the teacher grabbed the hem of his thermal and pulled it over his head.  Goosebumps.  A shiver raced up his spine.  Mr. Chang pulled him close and licked between his pecs, sucked one piqued nipple into his mouth.  He was sure the older man could feel his heartbeat.  It raced.  His breath faltered when Mr. Chang gripped the meat of his thighs just under his ass.  He kneaded the tender flesh through Trowa’s jeans while lavishing attention on the opposite nipple.

Trowa captured Mr. Chang’s lips when his teacher stood.  Trowa removed his shirt, and they both fell onto the bed side by side.  Chest to chest.  Mr. Chang’s face was shadowed, silhouetted by the lamp behind him on the desk.  The teacher undid his jeans and Trowa lifted up his hips, let them slide down his thighs.  Mr. Chang did the same for his own soft linen pants.  He wrapped an arm around Trowa’s waist once they were naked and slid his knee between the student’s thighs.

“Are you a virgin?”  He asked suddenly.  Trowa couldn’t make out the expression on Mr. Chang’s face.  

“No,” the student said.  He didn’t believe in virginity.  He certainly wasn’t pure, or innocent.  Whether Mr. Chang accepted this, or simply chose to disregard it, Trowa wasn’t sure.  The moment passed and then they were grappling, kissing.  Open mouths tasting and gasping for air all at once.  Mr. Chang’s body left his for a moment.  It was cold without his heat and Trowa felt the goosebumps rise again all along his arms and stomach and thighs.  The teacher returned and kissed Trowa, coaxed his mouth open with his tongue while one oiled finger slid between his asscheeks to stroke his entrance.

Trowa groaned as he was stretched, on his back with knees spread.  One finger was fine.  Two burned, until Mr. Chang brushed his prostate, and then he gasped at the intense feeling and squirmed.  Mr. Chang poured a small amount of oil onto Trowa’s belly, smeared it over his pelvis, slicked his cock with a few gentle strokes while rubbing that bundle of nerves inside him.  Trowa was panting and nearly undone when his teacher pulled away and prepared his hard cock.  He turned Trowa onto his side, facing away from him, and slowly inserted the tip.  It was painful.  It burned, but the body oil relieved most of the friction, and soon Trowa was opened up to him and Mr. Chang slid in to the hilt.

They lay there spooning.  Mr. Chang’s cock filled him, stretched him until Trowa began to squirm again.  A slick hand held him still, pressed against his stomach as Mr. Chang pulled out slowly and thrust inside.  Trowa could hear his jagged breaths against his back.  His soft grunts and growls.  He was deep inside the student, and with every slow, shallow thrust of his hips, Trowa felt the world start to darken at the edges.

Lips and tongue and teeth marked his back.  Hot breath soothed his skin.  The hand on his belly circled his cock and stroked in time to his teacher’s well-paced thrusts,  but soon the heat was too much.  The spring coiling in Trowa’s stomach wound tighter and tighter..  Mr. Chang’s hips moved more erratically.  His hand tugged more roughly.

Trowa came with a strangled cry, shuddering in his release as muscles spasmed and contracted.  Mr. Chang angled his hips and thrust hard and fast, pushing himself over the edge soon after Trowa with soft, satisfied grunts.  He could feel the heat of Mr. Chang’s release fill him.  The student relaxed bonelessly against Mr. Chang’s chest after the man pulled out.  Warm cum dribbled down his thighs.

He would have fallen asleep if Mr. Chang hadn’t shaken him gently and made him get up to clean himself.  When Trowa returned from the bathroom, his teacher was dressed again, sitting at his desk with the drawings from before.  He’d quickly changed the sheets on the futon, too.  Trowa flopped onto the bed and watched his teacher work.  He was no longer curious as to what the man was drawing, though.  Just interested in watching him as he pulled and pushed the pencil across the page.  He tried to commit the image to memory.

“Zechs met me at the gallery in person,” Trowa said.

“Did he?  How civil of him,” Mr. Chang replied, mocking slightly with his tone.

“He offered to look at my portfolio,” he added.  Mr. Chang’s posture shifted.  He glanced over at Trowa, who lay on the bed naked, newly changed sheets tangled between his legs.

“I’m sure if you show him what you have, he’ll pick you up,” Mr. Chang was honest, but unable to hide the bitterness in his tone.  “Will you do it?”

“Should I?”  Trowa asked quietly.  Mr. Chang barked out an incredulous laugh.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“No.  I already told you earlier.  I want you,” Trowa responded calmly.  He’d anticipated this.  This was the last conversation.  The end was coming, but he reclined on the bed with his gaze levelled at Mr. Chang instead of picking up his clothes and leaving.  The muscles of his teacher’s jaw flexed and contracted as he grit his teeth.

“No, you don’t.  You want to be me,” Mr. Chang informed him.  Trowa’s anger bubbled up again.  It wasn’t often that someone could stir him up so quickly, or at all, but Mr. Chang had the knack.  He was all poisonous barbs and whip-like tongue.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”  He thought about it.  Was that true?  Trowa wasn’t sure anymore, he was so fucking confused.  He’d lost control of his wants weeks ago.

“Don’t be naive,” Mr. Chang retorted.  “You see that I have what you want.  I make art.  I show at galleries.  That’s what you want.  Well, now that Zechs is offering, it’s only natural to accept, isn’t it?”

“Is that what Heero did?”  Trowa asked quietly, watching as those words got an almost instant reaction from his teacher.  Anger.  Fury, almost, but it was restrained like an animal pacing in its cage.  Mr. Chang’s face remained calm, but his eyes burned.  Trowa tried his best not to shrink back under that look.  “Is that what Heero wanted?  He fucked you, and used you to start his career because that’s what he wanted.”

“I did not fuck Yuy,” Mr. Chang growled.  “I would never do that...” his voice failed when he realized that his answer, the one he often gave to Zechs and fellow artists who accused him of the same act, no longer applied.  Trowa saw panic creep into his posture.

“You fucked me,” Trowa said.

“You’re different,” Mr. Chang said lamely, turning away from Trowa to rest his forehead against his palms.  He looked defeated.

“How?  If I take Zechs’ offer, how will I be any different from Heero Yuy?  I don’t want that, Wufei.  I want you.”

Mr. Chang focused an intense look of disapproval at Trowa.  He slid off his stool and grabbed Trowa’s clothes off the floor angrily.  The student watched.  He caught the bundle when Mr. Chang threw it, standing over him at the edge of the bed.

“I’m tired of this conversation,” he said, calmly.  His passion was gone from his eyes.  Trowa felt helpless.  “And I’m done arguing with children.”

“I love you...”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid.  You don’t even know me.  Get out, Barton.”

“No!  I’m not taking Zechs’ offer.  I want to work with you.  To be with you!  I’ll just drop out of school,” he realized he was sounding desperate now.  Clinging to the last threads of rope that held the final act’s curtain open.  Barely clinging.

“If you won’t leave, then I will,” Mr. Chang replied.  Trowa didn’t move.  He stared at his teacher as an eerie calm settled over them.  The older man shifted, then turned and walked toward the door.  He toed on his shoes, picked up his jacket, and left.

Trowa remained in the bed.  He wrapped the sheets around himself, trying to fend off the cold.  They smelled clean.  No hint of their owner’s juniper and pine.  He fell asleep quickly, and woke up with the light of the next morning warming his naked skin.  Mr. Chang was still gone, so Trowa skipped class to stay in the studio.  He finished the two print assignments his teacher had required of him at the start of his apprenticeship and left long after dark to return home.

* * *

 The apartment was warm when Trowa entered.  It was past midnight and dark.  He flicked on the light.  Trowa felt numb despite the warmth, and left his things by the door as he drifted over to Duo’s room.  He knocked quietly.  There was scuffling from the other side, and then the door opened a crack and Duo peeked out.

“Tro… ” Duo squinted up at him.

“I’m sorry,” Trowa said quietly.  He sniffed and chewed the inside of his lips.

“What?  About what?”  He reached out automatically when his friend leaned forward, and wrapped Trowa in a hug.  “Jesus, you’re freezing.”  Trowa pressed his cold cheek against Duo’s neck and took the warmth offered.  They stood there quietly, until Trowa was swaying from exhaustion, and Duo pulled him over to the bed.  He slept with Duo’s arms around him.

* * *

 Duo forced Trowa to return to his classes.  He wasn’t surprised when Trowa told him Mr. Chang hadn’t shown up for class on Monday, that there was a new teacher replacing him, or that when Trowa had snuck over to Wisconsin Ave. that night, the locks had been changed and the key he had no longer worked at the studio.  

Duo was a good friend.  He helped pick up the pieces.  All of the tiny confused pieces of Trowa that neither of them was sure how to put back together.  Then, two weeks before the end of classes in late December, Duo barged into Trowa’s bedroom.  He had a plan that included getting rip-roaring drunk and clubbing -- neither options that Trowa liked, but he let Duo dress him in suitable clothing and they pre-gamed with whiskey.

“Let’s try and find that blond guy,” Duo said, passing a shot of whiskey over his lips while Trowa lined up another for himself.  “The short one that danced with you at that one club in that one neighborhood.”

“He went to Georgetown,” Trowa supplied.

“Yeah.  That guy.  Man, he was short,” Duo mused.  “I wonder if he’s rich.”

“Just because he goes to Georgetown doesn’t mean he’s rich,” Trowa argued.

“I bet he is.  You know, that’s what you should do.  Bag yourself a tiny, rich Georgetown graduate.  He can be your patron.”

“Okay,” Trowa agreed good naturedly.  Whiskey did that to him.  “Let’s find him.  We’ll marry him, and we’ll use his money to become famous artists.”

“Whoa, whoa.  Speak for yourself, Tro.  This guy isn’t interested in the ol’ ball an’ chain,” Duo pointed to himself with his thumb.  Trowa smirked.

“Okay, then I’ll marry him,” he said.  Duo laughed and gave his blessing.

 

 


	2. Chiaroscuro: Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Afterward, at a gallery.

Trowa found the blond. His name was Quatre Raberba-Winner. He was nice, really a kind-hearted man, and he adored Trowa. He worshipped Trowa. They dated all through college, married after graduation, and lived together between a house in Georgetown and a condo in New York City. He gave Trowa a nice life. Gave him whatever he needed.

Eventually, Trowa began to show his work in galleries. Not Zechs’ galleries. He was only moderately successful, and prefered to act as a patron to his friends and other artists, using Quatre’s money to foster the artist community. Trowa frequently attended events -- auctions, show openings, fundraisers -- to help do just that, and his husband tagged along when he could, like tonight at the Whitney.

“Do you know any of the artists in the show, Trowa?” Quatre asked, as he always did, somewhat starstruck by the art around them. He was a man from a well-known family that had very few ties to the arts, but the people still fascinated him. Trowa was convinced his husband thought they were a different species entirely compared to the lawyers and businessmen he was usually around. Though, the artist did somewhat foster that by keeping most of his friends and artwork separate from his husband’s business life.

“Some,” Trowa replied, letting Quatre’s hand rest on the back of his neck. His thumb ran along the edge of his hairline soothingly. The blond’s smile lit up.

“Why don’t you introduce me? I love meeting your artist friends,” he leaned in close to speak. It was his way of marking Trowa, of making sure everyone knew he belonged with the artist. It annoyed Trowa that Quatre was so self-conscious, but he ignored the gesture and walked the other man around the museum on the look out. The first artist they passed -- Heero Yuy -- stopped to chat with them. He and Trowa had become close colleagues and friends after meeting at Trowa’s first show opening.

Conversations with Heero at these events were usually short and clipped, so Trowa lead Quatre away after a few minutes. They continued making the rounds. Met artists. Rubbed elbows with the elite patrons, those businessmen and independently wealthy socialites to whom Quatre had a stronger connection than Trowa. The brunette left his husband while he conversed with these people.

He navigated the rooms and people until he came to a wall of huge prints. Peacocks in colors of sunset and passion and flame. They were enormous, and clearly a nod to the calmer blue and green and gold birds that adorned the walls of Whistler’s Harmony in Blue and Gold. He had already asked Quatre to buy them when he’d first seen the series upon entering, when he’d heard it would be shown at the Whitney and auctioned later. When he heard their creator would be making a rare appearance at the opening.

“Pretentious, aren’t they?” an abrasive voice asked Trowa. He glanced over at the shorter man beside him, then back up at the prints. That was something people had been saying about these pieces all night. Something he disagreed with entirely.

“They’re enormous,” he said. “Clearly the artist is compensating for something.” That earned him a derisive snort, to which he replied with a small smirk.

“Some idiot already bought them,” the man groused. Trowa was only amused by the blatant stab.

“I suppose that means at least one person thinks they’re beautiful,” Trowa said softly. He turned to look at Mr. Chang, meeting the dark glare the other man refocused from the framed artwork to the taller artist. Trowa missed basking in the intensity of that look, so he held Mr. Chang’s gaze for a long time, until his husband interrupted them with a cheery greeting.

“Found you,” Quatre said playfully, cupping his palm around Trowa’s elbow possessively. Mr. Chang’s lips twitched upward into barely a smile, then he turned and walked away into the crowd. “Who was that?”

“My old teacher,” Trowa said, leaning down to give Quatre a chaste kiss on the temple. The blond smiled at him, wrinkling his nose.

“Oh… your old teacher, hm?” He purred in the brunette’s ear again. Trowa liked when his husband got a little saucy. It didn’t fit the way other people seemed to perceive him -- docile, innocent, neutered. Though it was a little unsettling how close to the mark Quatre was, Trowa knew the blond was incapable of realizing how true his words rang. He believed Trowa had a heart just as good and whole as his own.

“You’re dirty,” Trowa replied automatically. He kissed Quatre again, this time on the cheek, and then suggested they leave early and skip the auction.


End file.
